Disaster Planning From Berkley Mid-Atlantic Group

No one plans to have a disaster, but everyone should have a disaster plan. Some companies have dedicated departments that specialize in disaster planning, but in most businesses the responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of the owner or general manager.

Insurance industry figures show that about one fourth of small businesses that close because of a disaster, whether natural or human-caused, never reopen. In most of these cases advance planning would have made all the difference, but it didn’t get done because of limited resources, lack of knowledge or competing priorities.

Berkley Mid-Atlantic Group agents and insureds have access to this tool.

Professional disaster planning assistance is available on-line through the Institute for Business & Home SafetyÒ (IBHS) Open for Business^SM, a not-for-profit insurance industry association. The IBHS mission is to reduce the social and economic effects of natural disasters and other property losses by conducting research and advocating improved construction, maintenance and preparation practices.

This online planning tool focuses on three categories of protection to help you survive a natural disaster:

§ Your human resources

§ Your physical resources

§ Your business operation

You will identify what natural hazard events could affect you and what you can do to reduce your exposure to the events through protection of your building and contents. You will also develop a plan to resume essential business operations.

You can create your plans in stages, save your current work on the Institute for Business & Home Safety website, and return to pick up where you left off. You can always update or change information as needed. At all times, the data entered, and the final plans, are only accessible by you or those who share your username and password.

You have the option to save the completed plan online, with IBHS, so that it is available at any time from any location. This is especially important following a disaster when your primary location may not be accessible. You may also save your plans locally, e.g. on your hard drive, disk, CD, or a paper copy

Click here to be directed to the IBHS Open for Business^SM website. You will need your access code to begin using the disaster planning tool. If you do not have your access code, call your independent agent.